The Bucks Stops Here (Final Part)

Activity Three: Dinner and That's Super, Man!

We drove for an hour and a half back to the city after our adventures in Torquay, and headed to our next destination - Squire's Loft in the city for our Man Meal.

Smile for the camera,
unsuspecting victim!

And so we sat over ribs, and steaks and mounds of chips, each of us tired and hungry from the day's exertions. By this time Alex had joined us for dinner, and we recounted the day's events to him as we wolfed down our meals.

Then came the session of questioning by my brother and everyone else present. They had asked Karen a few personal questions about our relationship and I had to get every one correct, otherwise I was punished.

It was at this moment, when I thought that this was as bad as it got, when my brother suddenly pulled out this costume he had kept hidden in a plastic bag. It was a Superman costume.

My heart sank immediately. I was going to say my stomach was filled with butterflies but by this time,  the butterflies were competing with steak, fries, ribs and drinks. My brother led me up to the bathroom upstairs and I changed into the outfit. I was terrified about what they were going to ask me to do next.

I walked down the stairs and was greeted by cheers, both from the bucks and the other patrons gathered there.

Oh, dear Lord.

I look like I'm in boxers.
And nothing else.

My brother pulled out my tasksheet for the night - I had to ask random women in Melbourne for their names, phone numbers, to rate my hotness, and to see if they would give me a kiss and a hug.

Each women held a promise of a maximum of 18 points, which meant that I had to ask a minimum of 6 women that night for their details. The questions were marked accordingly - 2 points for a real phone number, 1 point for a fake one. 4 points if they kissed me on the lips, 3 points if they kissed me on the cheek, and 2 points if they kissed the paper I was holding.

Reluctantly, the Man of Steel-A-Little-Nervous-About-This went out into the Melbourne night with its hordes of drunken revellers. I was sure I would die or at the very least, get beaten up tonight.

I was trying to remember if we left a Super tip that night.

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The first women we approached were thankfully a little drunk and very obliging. I got two women outside a pub on a quiet street to answer my questions in quick succession, and soon I was flying (hurhur) - 24 points! This was going to be a breeze!

Some wonderfully sporting patrons.

My bucks saw that thought creep into my head, and then laid down the law. Oi, you're only allowed to ask one girl per street, they said.

One girl per... Luckily I wore my underpants on the outside, otherwise I would have soiled it.

And so, began my journey into the heart of town, and the Saturday night crowd.



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The first major street we walked down was Bourke Street. The harmless, faceless shopping strip in the daytime suddenly was filled with every eye upon me, and it didn't help that my friends kept singing the Superman theme song (Da da da dum, da da dum, Da da da dum, DA DA DUM!) every time I crossed the street.

I approached women who seemed nice, enough - Asian if I could (usually more obliging) although I had some really nice Caucasian women join in on the fun. And so it was a cycle of  'Excuse me miss, I'm sorry to trouble you, but it's my bucks, and my friends are b@stards, and I would like to ask if I could take five minutes of your time to answer some questions for me?'

That's me - The Apologetic Man Of Steel. I felt like I was trying to convince them to join World Vision or Save The Children. (work done by actual superheroes)

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Some highlights of the night:

1) A few adventurous women who kindly played along and answered my questions, rating me a 10 on a hotness scale, who said that yes, they would date me, and kissed me on the cheek (no one dared kiss me on my lips. Thankfully.) (I am a carrier of 2 communicable diseases. Haha!)

Melbourne city welcomes superheroes.

2) The random drunk guys who yelled out Superman! at me or the girls flapped my cape behind me as I stood at the traffic lights waiting for it to turn green (law-abiding superhero, that's me.)

3) The best comment for the night was from a young kid who found out I was getting married who asked, 'You're getting married? That's like, committing yourself to one pussy for the rest of your life, man!' to which I shot back, 'Better make it a good one then!'

4) People singing the Superman theme upon seeing me, or some variation of it. (I'm sorry, why is everyone telling me to Superman that ho?)

5) Having my Super-nipple tweaked by a guy as I walked past him (okay, so it wasn't a highlight, it was more like a WTF can't you see this uniform and know what I am capable of doing to you moment?)



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And so after an hour of walking through the heart of the city and getting sequentially loved/rejected by Melbourne's women that night, we ended up in Fed Square close to midnight. I had 85 points and was almost on the home stretch.

Her invisible plane is parked atop that cop car behind us.

That was when we saw Wonder Woman.

It was a rub your eyes, are you kidding me, this is too good to be true moment. There she was, standing in all her Wonder Glory waiting for her partner The Riddler to get his fries.

My bucks pushed me up to her and I started my awkward questions. Luckily, she was a great sport and answered all my questions in her Scottish Wonder-accent.

I got a 14 out of 18 possible points, which brought my total up to 99 marks. Some of my bucks wanted me to go up to one more girl but the others said that this was a perfect way of ending the night.

Relieved, I swung my cape around and we headed back towards the city. We were all smiling after an enjoyable buck's day, and night, and ending it on a high.

But the night was not yet over.

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We were walking along Swanston Street, approaching Flinder's Lane when suddenly there was the sickening sound of crunching glass, followed by a collective gasp from the Saturday night crowd which suddenly came to a standstill.

It was eerily quiet for two seconds before you could hear a couple of the girls saying 'Oh my God, look away! Don't look, Becky!'

Instinct told me an accident had happened and years of emergency training had conditioned me to run towards the danger rather than away from it.

A man lay crumpled on the floor, the offending car stopped a few metres away from him, the windshield spidered from where his head had hit it.

His friend was squatting over him, and a group of men had gathered around him, seeing if they could help.

'Someone call an ambulance,' I said.

'I can help, I am an emergency doctor.'

His friend, a big guy with thick rimmed spectacles looked up at me, visibly tense, and shouted at me, 'Mate, I'm a paramedic. Piss off!'

I looked up at him, before realising that I was still in my Superman costume and told him, 'No, you don't understand, I am an emergency doctor.'

'No, you're drunk and dressed in a Superman costume, and this is a real emergency, so piss off!'

We would have wasted a good few minutes reasoning this way but luckily Alex, a senior emergency registrar friend of mine who was dressed in a more respectable clothes crouched beside me and said 'We're emergency doctors at the Northern. We can help.'

It was only then when the friend relaxed and we discussed about how best to manage the victim. There was a trickle of blood under his head and I was a little worried when I had trouble finding a pulse, but soon the victim groaned and began to rouse.

'Mate, you're in the city. You've just been involved in an accident, and the ambulance is on the way. Now stay still, all right?' He couldn't remember that it was Saturday, or that he was in the city, and was quite obviously concussed, but looked otherwise all right.

The police had begun to arrive and started forming a parameter around the victim. Not two minutes had passed when the sirens of an ambulance pierced through the night, the flashing red and blue lights bringing salvation.

We soon collectively log-rolled the man onto his back, where the bleeding gash above his left eyebrow became evident, which we put a pressure dressing on before helping him onto the stretcher.

My good friend Anthony took this awesome shot.

The police and paramedics saw that the man was awake, at least, and relaxed a little. Soon the inevitable wisecracks came - 'Thanks, Superman! Couldn't have done it without you!' or 'Saving the day again huh?' or 'They pay you overtime for this?'.

I gave my statement to the police officer, who asked quietly whether I thought this would go pear-shaped, and I said to him, he'll probably be okay. You could see the young blonde driver in the distance, being comforted as she was still shaken by the accident.

There was a veil of seriousness amongst my friends as we departed from what was a near-tragic situation but that soon lifted as we told them that he was going to be okay. Soon they were joking and laughing again, everyone going on about how truly epic this night had turned out to be, and how they had it all on their cameras.

One friend joked that no matter how amazing his buck's turns out to be one day when he finally gets married, he will say 'Ah, but it isn't Heng Khuen's buck's.'

We said our goodbyes, and I finally got home and crawled out of my spandex suit (Quick joke: Why is Superman's suit always tight? Because he wears a size S), plonking down on my couch and nestling to sleep, tired after an extraordinary day.

The rest of what happens to the story you know about.

Special thanks to my brother for planning the buck's (including the accident, some joked) and to all my friends who celebrated my last week of singlehood with me.

Who knows why these things happen, but let's just say that today was proof that my God has a wonderful sense of timing and humour.

Super friends.